Can our love affair with M&S food survive?

Thursday 3 July 2008 23:41 BST

A friend moaned to me last week: 'You know things are bad when you have to start chopping up your own pineapples.' She isn't keen on cooking, is a busy teacher and has three children and a barrister husband to look after, so she has always shopped in her local branch of Marks & Spencer for food.

She would buy the store's ready-prepared fruit and veg, their children's range dishes and easy-cook, lightly dusted lemon sole fillets for the adults.

But for now, her love affair with M&S is over. She's shopping in her local Sainsbury's these days. Clearly, I cannot hold my friend entirely responsible for the disastrous slump in M&S shares this week, but it's significant that millions like her have decided it's time to rein in the spending. The credit crunch is no longer something we're reading about; we are actually living it.

Taste of luxury: M&S has been hit by the credit crunch first because it is at the top-end of the supermarkets

Taste of luxury: M&S has been hit by the credit crunch first because it is at the top-end of the supermarkets

That's why many people are choosing to go to Sainsbury's and Tesco. At the former, Jamie Oliver tells you how to cook a meal for a family of four on a fiver, which is far more appealing than going to M&S where the same sum will get you two tiny pots containing a few cubes of mango.

Is it any wonder that Sainsbury's is reporting a 3.4 per cent rise in sales in the 13 weeks to June 28, while at M&S food sales have fallen by 4.5 per cent over the same period?

Economist Vicky Redwood, of consultants Capital Economics, says: 'M&S has been affected by families choosing to go to less expensive, less luxurious stores for their shopping, which is hardly surprising considering the economic climate.

'I expect the process will continue and all retailers will suffer, except maybe huge discounters such as Aldi who have seen massive sales increases. But M&S has been hit first because it is at the top-end of the supermarkets.

'Lower-income households have been most affected by fuel and food price increases, but the M&S news shows middle-income households are also being hit by the credit crunch.'

Shopping for your food at M&S is a luxurious experience. However, my wallet prefers Tesco. A voucher for 5p off a litre of petrol which I received with my last Tesco weekly shop, for example, is far more useful than a free M&S picnic bag (the gift they gave me last year for spending £10 on four little packs of tapas-style snacks).

Catastrophic results

After this week's catastrophic results, Steven Esom, head of food at M&S for the past year, got the chop. Was it all his fault? Well, perhaps he was partly to blame, but the truth is that M&S doesn't seem to have seen the economic malaise coming, or didn't react quickly enough or alter its pricing or product lines to match people's reduced budgets.

For example, the clever 'This is not just a chocolate pudding, it's an M&S chocolate pudding' ad campaign may have caused sales of the product to shoot up by an astonishing 3,500 per cent last year, but no one stopped to think that the time might come when all we would actually want would be 'just' a chocolate pudding.

Next week, the company will launch 350 branded food products, such as tabasco sauce and Coca-Cola, in 19 stores in the North-East, which will help customers to do a broader weekly shop.

Too little, too late, some would say.

The basics M&;S already stocks are not very basic; even the toilet rolls are prettily embossed (and cost £2.69 for four). At Tesco, four rolls of Andrex - which is not a budget line - is only £1.99. While we're comparing prices, Tesco Farmhouse Mature Cheddar costs £7.88 a kilo, but at M&S it's £10.39. That's a huge difference.

Again with minced beef. It's £2.89 at Tesco, and that's for 500g of good quality, organic meat. At M&S it's £3.99 for a smaller, 450g pack of non-organic.

Additionally, all the luxury items which were once available only at M&S - posh ready-meals and the like - are on sale elsewhere. Now, we can buy everything from washing powder to beef Wellington under one roof at cheaper supermarkets.

And when an M&S lasagne costs £2.29 compared with Asda's slightly smaller equivalent at 79p, most people would be hard-pushed to justify spending nearly three times as much for a dish that may not taste noticeably different.

And here's the rub, I'm afraid. For, in many people's opinion, most of M&S's ready-meals just don't taste very nice. Yes, they undoubtedly contain excellent quality ingredients with no E-numbers or strange chemicals, but by the time they've been heated, they're a bit too sloppy thanks to all that sauce.

Many of them taste bland. It's infinitely tastier, healthier and almost just as easy to grill some fish or meat and serve it with fresh vegetables. And it's cheaper.

M&S has recently started offering some good deals on ready-meals, but they're still quite expensive, often costing around £4.99 per person, and you always need some extra (expensive preprepared) vegetables.

It's not difficult to see the problem. Customers want more. That's why M&S has been so comprehensively crunched.

And how its ready meals compared to the rivals...

We asked Marcus Wareing - a two Michelin-starred celebrity chef who works at London's Petrus restaurant - to give us his professional verdict on these ready meals, along with expert nutritionist Angela Dowden.

Taste test: Marcus Wareing put the big stores' ready meals on trial

Taste test: Marcus Wareing put the big stores' ready meals on trial

Lasagne

M&SLasagne, 400g, £2.29

Marcus: Very meaty, but also quite greasy. Overall, the flavour was OK, but it was high in calories, at 640, considering the lack of substance.

Angela: Despite tasting good, this one is very high in salt, at 2.3g; fat, at 35.6g; and saturated fat, 16.8g.

Sainsbury'sBeef lasagne, 400g, £1.45

Marcus: This was very oily, indeed, and lacked any real flavour. The cheese sauce was thickened and heavy. It tasted really unhealthy.

Angela: With 31g of fat and 14.5g of saturated fat per pack, this product is not for dieters. More calorific than a Mars Bar, this meal contains 521 calories and 1.88g of salt per pack.

TescoLasagne, 300g, £1.49

Marcus: This is what I would deem the ultimate in lazy comfort food - minimum effort and dirt cheap. Unsurprisingly, it's not the best quality. It tastes OK, but has a mushy texture. However, in its favour, there is a lot of cheese sauce, which is nice.

Angela: This is still high in fat (29.6g) and saturated fat (15.6g). However, at 359 calories, It's not overly calorific.

WaitroseLasagne, 400g, £1.99

Marcus: This is very rich with a meaty flavour - definitely the best of the lasagnes.

Angela: Although this is rich and meaty with a nice flavour, it's nevertheless still pretty much a whopper when it comes to fat, with 22.4g per serving, more than half of which is saturated fat. It's also high in salt, with 2.3g. However, as far as taste goes, it's definitely the best of the lasagnes.

AsdaSmart Price lasagne, 300g, 79p

Marcus: An OK flavour, but not much meat or tomato sauce. Instead, it is mostly made up of pasta and cheese.

Angela: Not the healthiest of options. Though it was low in calories (331), the fat (16.1g) and saturated fat (8.4g) content were high and the salt content was too high (1.9g).

Vegetarian Pasta

M&SFour cheese ravioli, 400g, £2.29

Marcus: Although the tomato sauce was quite tasty, I couldn't define the four different cheeses at all - and the filling had a bread-like texture.

Angela: Not bad on the amount of calories, at 540 per pack, but the fat content is a bit high at 26.4g, or 16g of saturated fat.

Sainsbury'sMacaroni cheese, 400g, £2.15

Marcus: There's too much cheese sauce here - the ratio was wrong. It was very plain and would have have been nicer with some other addition - perhaps onions - to break up the texture.

Angela: This curl-your-feet-up-on-the-sofa comfort food contains 28.3g of fat and 18.4g of unsaturated fat per pack. It has a medium salt content at 1.92g per pack and an medium calorie content at 577.

TescoMacaroni cheese, 420g, £1.89

Marcus: Very, very cheesy (and a massive 830 calories), and very sickly to taste. Again, no real macaroni pasta has been used, a smallish penne type has been included instead.

Angela: Typically of cheesy dishes, this is seriously fatty - packing in a whopping 40.7g, of which 24.2g saturates - more than the daily ecommended amount. and it contains 830 calories. Medium salt - 2.1g.

WaitroseMacaroni cheese, 400g, £1.39

Marcus: Too much sauce and too little pasta inside this dish, and it is also very cheesy. Very high in calories considering it slack of substance.

Angela: This is an artery-clogger - 48.8g of fat, 36g of which is saturated. However, it is low in salt and sugar, but very high in calories, at 577.

AsdaTomato pasta bake, 300g, 79p

Marcus: My kids would love this because it tasted like tinned spaghetti. But it's very tomato-based, and it didn't do much for me!

Angela: This has the same problem as the lasagne - low in calories, at 344, but high levels of salt, 1.8g, and saturated fat, 7.5g. Not a great healthy option.

Chicken Meal

M&SChicken arrabbiata, 400g, £2.99

Marcus: Pleasantly tasty and good ratio of sauce, chicken and pasta. Thought had gone into the balance, which worked well. The chicken was moist and tasty.

Angela: This is a healthy, tasty option, with 460 calories, 12g of fat, of which 4g is saturated. The salt is a little high, though, at 2.44g.

Sainsbury'sChicken and bacon pasta bake, 400g, £2.15

Marcus: The overall taste was a little artificial, but the seasoning was satisfactory and the herbs (albeit in dried form) were a nice addition.

Angela: A meal like this contains 31.8g of fat, 19.3g of unsaturated fat, a whopping 681 calories and a medium salt content of 2.06g.

TescoChicken arrabbiata, 400g, £1.89

Marcus: There's a nice flavour to this dish, with a subtle hint of spice and good, sweet tomato sauce. A fair amount of chicken was used, which was definitely surprising given the price.

Angela: A healthy dish with only 465 calories, 10.5g fat and 1.6g salt.

WaitroseChicken and pesto lasagne, 400g, £2.99

Marcus: An acceptable amount of flavour, but it tasted very artificial. I couldn't see much chicken.

Angela: Tasted very artificial overall, and was high in fat, at 22.5g. I'm not sure it's worth the calories - 471 per pack

AsdaChicken arrabbiata, 300g, £1.98

Marcus: A complete lack of seasoning here. The portion was large but not much chicken compared to the amount of pasta. The large, overcooked penne tubes also made this dish difficult to eat.

Angela: Despite having more calories, at 394, it's a healthy option, being low in fat (3.1g) and saturated fat (0.5g).

Prawn meal

M&SKing prawn makhani, 350g, £4.19

Marcus: Very sweet taste, but with a nice spicy flavour. The prawns were a little dry.

Angela: Again, low in calories and salt (0.98g) - though a bit high in saturated fat (16.8g)

Sainsbury'sMarinated chicken and king prawn paella, 380g, £2.99

Marcus: A dish which looked great before heating, but when it came out of the oven it was awful and very watery. The chicken was dry and the prawns were, too. The dish lacked seasoning and flavour.

Angela: The Spanish classic has a low fat content and one pack contains 4.6g of fat and 1.4g of unsaturated fat. It is also low in calories, with only 377, and has a medium salt content of 1.28g.

TescoKing prawn and roasted garlic linguine, 400g, £2.79

Marcus: It was good to see some greens in an instant meal - broccoli and spinach, which were still al dente. The prawns were OK. But the pasta had no flavour at all.

Angela: Aside from its medium salt content (2g), this is pretty good, with only 355 calories and 9.2g of fat (3.4g saturated fats).

WaitroseKing prawn masala, 350g, £3.59

Marcus: Tasty and authentic flavour, surprisingly fresh tasting and the prawns were moist. My favourite out of the lot.

Angela: It's also a reasonably healthy choice, as far as ready meals go, with a medium level of fat (13.5g) and low levels of sugars and calories - just 201. This was my favourite meal out of the lot.

AsdaChicken and prawn paella, 300g, £2.88

Marcus: Absolutely awful, with no flavour at all. The ingredients all separated out and did not come together when the dish was heated up.

Angela: With 380 calories, 8.4g of fat (2.4g saturated fats) and 1.8g of salt, this is not as healthy as the chicken, but overall it is not a bad balance.